Hardwood Floors August/September 2019

DESIGNER INSIGHTS INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

Inspiration. It’s at the heartbeat of the flooring industry and what keeps us all in the cycle of evolution. What inspires you? How are you inspired? When are you inspired? Being a “creative” today is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that we are all constantly infiltrated with new perspectives, fresh ideas, more accessible travel, and, well, ideas. Within an instant, my newsfeed is taking me to an emerging high-rise project in Dubai; I’m in a train buzzing through wine country during harvest in an Instagram story; I'mwatching a blogger's design journey as she renovates a midcentury bungalow in San Francisco – while I am onWi-Fi and in the air from LaGuardia to Paris. Information – too much information – is at my fingertips at breakneck speed. UNPLUGGED Powering Off Digital Allows Creative Inspiration to Flourish

Market Watch recently revealed that the average American adult spends 11 hours per day consuming digital media, which is up from 9 hours and 32 minutes only four years ago. But I did not need a study to tell me this news. My newest iPhone XS Max reveals my screen time usage, and the daily notification is staggering, to say the least. It leaves us all wondering, “Did I really look at my phone that much today?” While we’re consuming all of this media, how is our brain processing it? Studies show that the overconsumption of digital makes us feel differently,

react differently, think differently, and sleep differently. According to a Mashable article from just a few years ago, some cognitive experts have found benefit in digital exposure and its effects on the human brain, whereas others worry that toomany distractions have left our brains uncreative and impatient.

Photos courtesy of Emily Morrow Finkell.

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